Ominous Stay - Year 3, Semester One

From concept to space

It has been quite the challenge trying to express the concept and atmosphere I'm trying to achieve to a building. The conceptual section below shows in essence an external envelope that looks quite normal from the outside that leads to different rooms in an internal space of which the structure and layout resembles the way Charles Peace used to remove bricks under the bridge to construct his space of inhabitation. The route a person would follow towards his room seems quite normal but it masks a peculiar interior "courtyard" which is only revealed by the view from each rooms window. The space one sees from the window is quite daunting since the existence for this space is concealed/masque at all points of the user's journey to his room. Acoustic relationships between units bellow or above each one's unit only enhance the feeling of something is about to happen and the notion of sinister activities taking place.

A Sheffield Masque

Just a conceptual model trying to investigate how everything comes together in one building with a narrative in the same form of John Hejduk's in Lancaster / Hanover Masque. Sequential sketches are to follow...

Psycho, Sweeney and a Masque...

So yeah we are designing a Hotel/Hostel/Motel of some sort to accomodate 30-40 people but that's about it... the rest of it is up to us (surprise surprise)

So I took the opportunity of finding opportunities to do things in the site from my character (see post below) like hide a person / dump a body / hide something (stash of some sort?) or enter the site without being seen and used this as a form of site analysis.

I also explored the site vertically using as case studies the movies Psycho (1960) and Sweeney Todd: The demon barber of Fleet Street and deducting common themes between them and see how the conceal the sinister in the building. This is achieved by having a public ground floor where all is good and then sinister things going on underground or on 1st floors which actually makes sense. 

And going further with that masking of actions with a building I studied a bit about Lancaster / Hanover Masque by John Hejduk (head of the Cooper Union for several years) which is different structures that accomodate different scenarios and different inhabitants (similar to my case) and how these masks also conceal actions.

Let's see how I can implement all of these now in an actual building...

New year, new beginnings

First project of third year and we are designing a.... a.... what? we don't know what we are designing. Yeah that's third year for you! So we don't have a building we have a word! Yes a word! "Stay". No brainer here, we will be probably designing a hotel of some sort. However the project has 3 introductory assignments before we get to the actual designing the building bit.

Do a section and a plan of a bag they said. And identify a protagonist to be travelling from/to Sheffield. My site is in Eccelsall road (yes we have a site but not a building yet... that's third year for you once again) So I did a bit of history digging and found out about this interesting character Charles Peace, notorious thief/burglar/murderer that lived close to my site and killed his neighbour because Peace was having an affair with his neighbour's wife (!!!) And this is how his bag looked like when he was escaping Sheffield the night of the murder:

Then (still having no building) we were to design a room for our character to sleep in for a night. So my character found refuge under the bridge in my site (how convenient!) by removing bricks and creating a space for inhabitation under the bridge providing him security and a good hideout from the police. How that's going to inform the building though... no idea.

Next Step: actually find out what the building is!!!!

CAA Summer Workshop 2012

Cyprus Architect Association Summer Workshop 2012 revolved around the theme of creating interesting geometries through parametric design and modular unit structure. The video above is the process and result of the 7-day workshop (edited by myself)

Special Study: Rectify Buffer Zone

A new blog has been launched to help me document my special study/dissertation and to investigate the public opinion about rectifying Nicosia's buffer zone which is the main theme of the special study.

Please help me circulate the blog and get the feedback of the public: http://rectifyzone.wordpress.com/

Updates will be done as the study progresses.